Occupational safety and health
Managing significant safety and health risks effectively to ensure the protection of our people, operations, and communities is a key imperative and priority for the organization. Given the high-consequence disaster and fatality risks associated with our operating plants in particular, this is a material sustainability impact for Nippon Paint Group and a critical focus to ensure our maximization of shareholder value.
Our approach to achieving MSV
During 2023 each Partner Company Group (PCG) made further progress on their individual improvement priorities for Safe People and Operations, including both high-consequence risks and everyday injury risks. This has continued to be supported by the global Environment & Safety Team comprising senior environment & safety leaders from each PCG, with a primary focus on benchmarking, sharing best practice, and establishing common performance metrics. Implementation of these metrics across all PCGs continued during the year, and once fully established will provide improved understanding and oversight of high-consequence risk management, including process safety events (e.g., flammable solvent losses of containment) and high potential incidents (e.g., serious near misses involving fatality risks).
Improving the effectiveness of high-consequence risk management will continue to be the key focus of the Sustainability Team in the coming year, including reviewing and establishing common standards for process safety risk management.
Group policy
There are significant safety and health risks in our business that could impact our people, supply chain, and communities. We will work to manage these risks effectively and prevent harm, with a priority focus on high-consequence risks.
Improvement & performance
There were no fatalities across the Group during the year, which is the second consecutive year following the occurrence of two fatalities in 2021. Process safety incident reporting was implemented during the year and four Tier 1 and 2 process safety events occurred, compared with three events in the prior year. This new metric enables an improved focus on management of high-consequence safety risks and will be further supported by a high potential incident metric in the near future.
The recordable case rate for employees and contractors decreased 7% to 0.84 recordable injuries and illnesses per 200,000 hours worked, while the lost workday case rate for employees and contractors decreased 6% to 0.50 lost time injuries and illnesses per 200,000 hours worked. These changes were primarily associated with performance improvement across DuluxGroup and Dunn-Edwards, together with inclusion of recent acquisitions.
Performance by Partner Company Group (PCG)
| PCG | Process Safety Incidents (Tier 1 and 2) |
Fatalities | Recordable Case Rate (per 200,000 hours) |
Lost Workday Case Rate (per 200,000 hours) |
Improvement Priorities |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NIPSEA Group | 3 （±0） |
0 （±0） |
0.41 （-0%） |
0.27 （+0%） |
|
| DuluxGroup | 1 （+1） |
0 （±0） |
1.60 （-13%） |
1.18 （-2%） |
|
| Japan Group | 0 （±0） |
0 （±0） |
0.62 （+59%） |
0.19 （+138%） |
|
| Dunn-Edwards | 0 （±0） |
0 （±0） |
4.72 （+3%） |
1.42 （-29%） |
|
| Total | 4 （+1） |
0 （±0） |
0.84 （-7%） |
0.50 （-6%） |
|
Management system
In 2020, the Group declared an ESG Statement and identified Safe People and Operations as an issue of materiality while also implementing measures to prevent occupational accidents and to create safe working environments for employees.
In 2022, we adopted the Group-wide Global Code of Conduct, which included considering employee and stakeholder safety in our activities. Specifically, the Global Team that works directly under the Directors, Representative Executive Officers & Co-Presidents discusses policies and initiative concerning occupational safety and health as one of our ESG issues and reports their outcomes to the Co-Presidents.
In Japan, members from all Group companies as well as on-site business contractors participate in the Responsible Care Committee and Group Safety and Environment Council, and Product Safety Council to find solutions to issues and improve the Group’s safety and health activities. These groups share information about injury accidents and major incidents that occurred at Group companies as well as accidents in other industries and the countermeasures are implemented throughout the Group to prevent recurrence.
All companies in all regions maintain RC and safety and health committees, which not only formulate measures for specific cases, but also address safety and environmental issues for all regions and engage all employees in finding solutions. Accident prevention efforts also include diligent risk assessments in all regions.
Nippon Paint Group Occupational Safety and Health Promotion Structure (based on the Group RC Promotion Structure)
See here for details on the occupational safety and health management system.
Risk assessment
All companies in all regions maintain RC and safety and health committees, which not only formulate measures for specific cases, but also address safety and environmental issues for all regions and engage all employees in finding solutions. Accident prevention efforts also include diligent risk assessments in all regions.
The Nippon Paint Group in Japan conducts safety and risk assessments and uses the results to plan and implement risk mitigation measures and to ensure strict compliance with risk acceptance mechanisms.
Assessments are conducted:
- When risk conditions change due to the introduction of or changes to equipment, materials, or operating methods
- At regular intervals based on the condition of machinery or equipment, such as for older equipment, or when the employees operating the equipment change
- At regularly scheduled times for existing equipment and work processes
In recent years, the risk assessments that are the core of our safety and health initiatives aimed at achieving zero serious accidents have focused primarily on addressing the increasing number of injury accidents that were occurring due to falls, reaction movements, and forced movements. We also responded to accidents that occurred within the Group in Japan by communicating information with all domestic Group companies, revising the onsite rules and safety measures, and strengthening management.
In addition, we conduct risk assessments and due diligence for occupational safety and health along with a wide range of items at new business partners and companies that join the Group through acquisitions or mergers.
For information about our risk assessments for chemical substances, please see here.
Targets and performance
As part of our responsible care activities, the Group sets and actively seeks to achieve targets occupational safety and health, security and accident prevention.
For targets and results, see the Environmental and safety management page.
Specific initiatives
Global safety and health activities: Contributing to safety controls at overseas Group companies
The Group actively supports safety and environmental activities at overseas Group companies. In fiscal 2020, although the COVID-19 pandemic prevented us from being able to directly visit companies, we were able to enhance the activities and level of leader competence in each country through the NIPSEA Safety & Sustainability Council and online meetings with each site.
In fiscal 2020, we started updating the risk assessment lists with the main purpose of identifying and addressing serious risks, such as fires and explosions, that cause operation suspensions. We also provided the lists to overseas Group companies and stepped up measures to prevent serious accidents.
Safety and health education
The Group seeks to prevent occupational accidents and raise risk awareness by providing regular occupational safety and health education programs at all companies and worksites. Safety training programs provided to all Group companies in Japan in fiscal 2023 were:
- Number of people participating in the road safety training program: 1,045